The Little Shop of Elements
by Old Toad
Summary: A Monty Python sketch heavily influenced by the famous Cheese Shop sketch. With added chemistry. And a radio ham. No violence!


**A/N:** _The idea for this sketch was stolen from the story_ _The National Chemical Emporium Sketch_ _by Colin M. Taylor. Thanks Colin!_

 **Scene:** A small shop with "We sell the elements" in gold letters on the door. Inside there is an empty counter, behind which stands a man wearing a shabby lab coat. On the wall behind him is a poster-sized Periodic Table with several of the elements crossed out in red.

A customer enters.

 **Shop Man:** Welcome to the Chemistry Retail Outlet.

 **Customer:** You sell chemicals?

 **Shop Man:** We specialise in the D.I.Y. market, sir: we sell the elements for our customers to make their own compounds.

 **Customer:** Splendid, my good fellow. I wish to acquire a noble gas.

 **Shop Man:** A worthy aspiration, sir, but we do not sell them: your noble gases don't form compounds.

 **Customer:** Fair enough. Fair enough. What about rare-earth elements?

 **Shop Man:** Only in our larger stores, sir.

 **Customer:** No transUranic elements I suppose.

 **Shop Man:** Yes.

 **Customer:** Yes?

 **Shop Man:** Yes, your supposition is correct.

There is a sudden howling noise; the customer turns to see, in a corner of the shop, a man sitting at what looks like an old fashioned ham-radio shack. The man is wearing Brown's Model F headphones and is twiddling knobs furiously. Lights flash randomly above him. Various hisses, howls and whistles punctuate the conversation from now on.

 **Shop Man:** Pay no attention, sir. Just a little fine tuning. Now, what can I do for you?

 **Customer:** I'd like some bromine.

 **Shop Man:** Not in yet, sir: the delivery driver has overslept again.

 **Customer:** Lithium, then.

 **Shop Man:** The same problem, sir: the delivery service is unreliable.

 **Customer:** Carbon! You must have carbon?

 **Shop Man:** Can't sell it sir, we don't have a carbon licence.

 **Customer:** Radium?

 **Shop Man:** Decayed, I'm afraid.

 **Customer:** Any Uranium?

 **Shop Man:** Our stock is totally depleted.

 **Customer:** You are going to tell me your Zinc is perforated aren't you?

 **Shop Man:** Au contraire, we are famed for our zinc powder. It is the finest available.

 **Customer:** Then I will have some that.

 **Shop Man:** Fame has its downside, we've sold out.

 **Customer:** You must have iron.

 **Shop Man:** Yes, ... but …

 **Customer:** Well?

 **Shop Man:** We've had a lot of damp weather lately, it's rusted away.

 **Customer** (above the rising wailing of the electrics): Do you have ASTATINE?

 **Shop Man:** Bless you, sir.

 **Customer:** Call yourself a shop? You've some brass.

 **Shop Man** (smug): We don't sell brass, sir, it's an alloy.

 **Customer:** That wasn't a question. AND TURN THAT RACKET OFF!

 **Shop Man** (to radio ham): I did warn you.

 **Customer:** What do you have?

 **Shop Man:** Try me, sir.

 **Customer:** Hydrogen?

 **Shop Man:** Leaked away, I'm sorry to say.

 **Customer:** Oxygen?

 **Shop Man:** No call for it around here, sir.

 **Customer:** But it's an essential for life!

 **Shop Man:** It's in the air around us. Folk here won't pay for what they can get for free.

 **Customer:** Err, Molybdenum?

The shop man turns to the Periodic Table behind him and silently points to Mo – it is crossed out.

 **Customer:** Bismuth?

The shop man disappears beneath the counter and is heard routing around. He triumphantly emerges with a pen and ostentatiously crosses out Bi on the Periodic Table.

The radio ham, still wearing the headphones, leaves the shop, ignoring the customer and shop man, who watch him go.

 **Customer** (leaning close to the shop man and lowering his voice): Any Ammonia?

The shop man looks around furtively and leans close up to the customer.

 **Shop Man** (conspiratorially): Ammonia is a compound.

 **Customer** (flashing a bank note): What have you got?

 **Shop Man** (slyly eyeing the money): I could slip you some Sulphate.

 **Customer:** Done!

THE END


End file.
